Under the Table
by AmourApricot
Summary: She was the one with a boy and a girl falling in love with her, and he was the one that thought she was too good to fall in love with. Secrets are scary, but when exposed? Terrifying. OOC, LANGUAGE, AND TOUCHY SUBJECTS.


_Hello there c: Thank you for opening this up! I know the summary must suck. I haven't even written it yet and I already know there's no way I'm going to be able to perfectly encompass this stories' content with a couple sentences. But for those that have checked it out, thank you my little snowflakes~_

 _Looking for a little description? You've come to the right place! This story is going to be about the lives of, as you can (hopefully, maybe, even remotely guess,) many people. Yes, of course our favorite little red head will be the main character, but we're going to go over a LOT of issues here with a LOT of people. Pretty much everything you can maybe think of is going to be packed into this story. Including about every touchy subject in the book. For some people, the subjects covered might be real life issues that you've dealt with or are dealing with, so I'm a little worried about how this is going to go, but I think people should be more aware._

 _This is basically going to be the epitome of "Don't judge someone until you know what their life is like," but in my own weird fictionalized manner. It might start off a little slow, but I have MUCH introducing to do. There's so much you need to know, and so many ideas I want to get rolling ;_; time is of the essence._

 _MAJOR OOC, LANGUAGE, AND SEXUAL CONTENT WARNING._

 _Do enjoy~_

* * *

 _Crash_

 _~I~_

 _/_

Clary saw it before she felt it; minimally, slight. Almost not at all. A quick flash, garish light piercing her green eyes. The sun reflected off its sheen white coating, creating a wall. _This is the end,_ basically, it could have told her. If it had the voice to do so.

She tried breaking; her extremities were whips, coiling around the handlebars in attempt to suspend the wheels, swirling at tornado-rapid speeds. The rubber's friction against the tar sent a lovely ear-piercing screech sailing the merry sea into her eardrums, but it certainly was not enough, never enough. Because no matter what, you could spend a lifetime avoiding a dangerous situation, but somehow, if by some stroke of un-luck the hand of God himself did not touch you, dangerous situations just found you. Inevitably. So what a coincidence the car just _happened_ to find her.

The hood bulldozed into the side of the bike, nailing Clary's leg with damaging force. It was an instantaneous flight sideways. Clary never knew her body could progress so fast. The bike went with her, dove at the same, same direction, stray rocks spraying from the scraping wheels. But her being seemed to detach from the mechanical instrument, and just for that moment her heart was ripped from her chest on a brisk plummet through the very bottom of the planet, her lungs stopping, any whisper of breath taking a vacation from her entire body, abandoning her cells to seek oxygen elsewhere because no part of her could think, could even breathe. Her body hit the ground so hard, and it was like a picture perfect palette of colors exploding behind her tightly shut eyes. Faintly, almost distantly, she heard the terrible scream of the halting car trying a little too late to miss the human that had interrupted its steady stream of flight.

Surprisingly; very interestingly, there perhaps was not as much pain as she had expected. But, God, don't mistake that for anything. The burn of sliding across cement still scorched the parts of her pale skin that remained unclothed - the rough, abusing texture removing that protective layer of much needed membrane. The agony of thrashing against such an unwelcoming surface still sent a siren off in her head: BEWARE, CONCRETE HURTS. No fucking shit.

A yell escaped her throat, followed by a groan, in addition to a gasp for the fact she had no air to breathe in, no lung capacity to handle it. She couldn't draw oxygen in, couldn't fill up the dry cups of her lungs with it, make it so she could comprehend what was happening. Only one thing was completely, utterly coherent in her mind. The single word, _pain, pain, pain,_ beating against the walls of her brain, pounding at the center of her forehead, melting out into her temples.

The reverberating sound of the door opening and slamming shut trotted in and out of her hearing. Hasty footsteps crunched against the dead gravel and withering leaves that littered the sun-streaked road. The high-pitched song of heeled boots ran in front of Clary.

"What do you think you're _DOING?!_ " A dramatized female voice, tone so high and screechy it might have caused her more pain than the agony-filled clutch of the ground. "Can you _not_ watch where you're GOING?! You _dented_ my _car!_ " So high-pitched, so screechy... So _girly._ Hello, Barbie, nice to be hit by your car too.

Clary was in no position to worry about the damage she had caused some girls' car. Hell, she couldn't even focus of the damage _it_ had caused _her._ She was too busy, curled in a ball on the ground, grasping with both arms at the stomach that struggled with expanding with air. She was just a bit more focused on continuing to _breathe_ than the rage pouring from this girl's voice.

"I can't believe you," the girl seethed, and her voice, so oddly, unfortunately enough, tickled the familiar fragments of Clary's mind. She knew she had heard it before. She _knew._ The girl released an extremely frustrated sigh, then, unsurprisingly, a sequel - a low, aggravated growl. " _Honestly,_ " she ground out. "What's your fucking problem? Do you have _eyes?_ I was trying to _drive!_ "

 _Thank you, so much, for caring about my well-being. I was worried about the possibility of a few broken ribs, too._

Clary, who could now receive little hints of oxygen, let it seep, appreciated, in and out of her mouth. If she could just focus, just focus on getting air into her lungs, into her body, to refresh her scattered mind, then perhaps she could conceive a sentence to mail to the girl that she was afraid would harm her for being harmed. With a groan, she rolled over, which she realized was an utter mistake. A wind pushed up into her throat, disarming in its nature. Her body reacted with a fit of coughing, the hoarse noise blowing out in gasps and spats. She had rolled to her other side, the side that faced the daunting boots of the girl, and behind that, the background of the slightly indented hood of a white and gold Mercedes Benz.

"HELLO?" she began again, irritated, as if Clary was purposefully ignoring her. "Are you listening to me? I am _so_ making you pay for that. Look at it! God, watch _out!"_ She couldn't catch it, but she presumed the girl with the twig thin legs, which was her only sight to behold, looked down at her. "Would you get up?! You're in my _way._ "

With an effort, Clary folded herself over, feeling each individual remnant of gravel kiss her sides and arms and legs. She was tape, rolling over and licking them up, susceptible to their sharp teeth and cutting bites. Her hands found the world beneath her and she pulled herself up, still paying for the oxygen that was getting increasingly easier to drink. Only when she stood on two shattered legs with a dizzied mind and thrumming head, did her blurry vision start to sharpen on the girl who hit her.

Her skin was milk white and flawless in the glowing light of early morning, and her bright, beach-blond hair was curled in soft waves that cascaded over the thin bones that passed for shoulders. The very tips, cut and healthy, were dyed the palest, faintest aqua-marine blue, curling in on themselves against the denim of her jean jacket. Her jaw was sharp, like a boy's should have been, without any color difference from the foundation on her face to the pale of her noticeable collarbones. Make-up littered her vibrant oceanic eyes, and it was then that Clary actually recognized who's voice emanated from her throat.

Kaelie Whiewillow.

Her stance was aligned, one thin hand with long, skinny digits molded into the curve of her side. Her expression was expectant; impatient.

Clary was a thousand different things in that moment, but sorry was not one of them.

"Kaelie," Clary said, still slightly breathless. The pain must have been evident in her voice. "You just _hit_ me. Do you want me to apologize for _your_ mistake? Because I don't envision that happening, if I'm being honest with you." She winced as she rubbed a knot in her side; her body was now a ball of yarn, tangled and mixed and not easily fixed.

"Maybe if you weren't so careless," Kaelie spat, her rage now a cooling sea of ice. "You _are_ paying for that. It's your fault."

" _How?_ " Clary shouted, incredulous and on the verge of a miserable hysteria.

"You were going too fast! It's called _stopping_ -"

"Something I see you're incapable of doing," Clary said. Her body could not complete the action of glaring; the drums in her head were relentless. She squinted at the reflected gleam of the car, at the indent her bike must have cratered. "I can't pay for that," she breathed, shaking her head so the red curls hugged her flushed cheeks.

Her already bruised stomach tightened internally at the thought of returning home to her mother and explaining why she needed five-hundred dollars out of nowhere. They could barely pay the electric bill, no matter how hard or long her mom worked to take one thread and the other and make the ends meet. She imagined the look on Jocelyn's face, an unwelcome visual in her mind. Stressed and upset and frustrated. Most days Clary wondered if the laugh lines around her mother's lips were going to disappear, melt back into her beautiful complexion that hadn't gotten to be radiant for months.

Kaelie's eyes could have sliced a brick. "Well that's just too bad, isn't it."

Clary's eyes were wide now, the green in them paling in the Fall sun. "No - I really, I just -"

Kaelie turned her skinny body so abruptly Clary actually flinched back. She pointed a firm finger at the car. "Look at it!" she yelled. "I can't drive around with that _hole_ in my car! Do you know how _expensive_ this was?!" Her temper had returned, along with a hidden desperation Clary could have sworn was being dug beneath that mask.

"Kaelie, look, I'm sorry, but I don't have that kind of-"

"What? Money? I suggest you come up with it!" Clary was a child trying to defend herself against an unyielding parent. Kaelie was not listening. She had closed her ears off to any opposing view.

Clary looked around, trying to calm herself, already forming explanations and defendants and apologies in her head. She started wondering where her shovel went, why this hole she was in was growing larger and larger, why her fingers were not enough to dig herself out. "Look, Kaelie. It wasn't my intention to ride out in front of you, okay? Perhaps we're both at fault here. I'm hurt too, if you hadn't noticed-"

"No, Clary Fray," Kaelie hissed, stepping forward so she was close enough to touch, too close, too close. "You listen to _me._ If you don't pay for this little hiccup you've caused, I'm going to have my _dad,_ one of the most powerful men in this stupid town, call your mother. I'd like to see you pay for _anything_ after my dad's through with her."

It should have been an empty threat, a childish one. The commonly used Kindergarten menace of 'tattle-tail.' That is, if Clary had been ignorant to the intimidating knowledge that was freely shipped with Meliorn Whitewillow. Kaelie came from a family with money pouring out of their backdoor; she didn't much doubt the catastrophic effect his say could have on both her mother's and her life. But even still.

"That's an unfair threat, Kaelie, and you know it," Clary snapped suddenly. She would not be the prey to the venus fly trap in front of her, sitting quietly by, waiting for her victim to stumble into her and be caught forever.

Perhaps this facade would protect her mother, she thought. Perhaps acting strong would get her out of this. "Pay for it yourself; it's not as if you don't have the money," she went on, backing up so she could retrieve her most likely broken bike and exit this scene.

"Hey," Kaelie called, stomping over to Clary in the midst of her attempt to pick up her bike. "Hey," she repeated, grabbing Clary's arm. A needle of pain pricked underneath her fingers, and Clary winced. That was the arm she fell on. "Don't tell anyone about this. Got it? Don't," her tone dropped, "say, a _word._ " Her eyes darkened under the shadow painted across her face. "Understand?" she said, shaking Clary. "Do you?" Her voice was growing firmer, impatient.

"Yes," Clary finally said, ripping her arm away. Agony found a home in her. "God, I get it."

"Good."

Clary's eyes watched Kaelie all the way to her car with the sort of emotion she should have tried hiding, though lacked the energy. The way she flung open her door and stored herself inside was the clearest indicator Clary had ever witnessed. Her movements were liquid dripping with annoyance - and something else. Something Clary couldn't dig up, find in her brain, because perhaps she just really didn't want to. Didn't want to see anything that could have defended the blonde's actions, her words.

Kaelie peeled out. Her tires sang a rubber song as they left black streaks across the road, paint lines of an angry mind. Dust plumed in the air around Clary, capturing her in its cloud. She coughed and shut her watering eyes against the dirty mist.

Every blood cell in her body exploded.

Rivers and currents of hot, unstoppable anger and frustration flooded her veins, pouring from her limbs in a visible puddle around her. She thought she was never going to exhale again, never going to want to. _Kaelie._

Kaelie Whitwillow, dating the boy Clary had had a crush on since sixth grade.

Jace Herondale.

Granted, over the years Clary had learned to take those emotions and box them up, accessorize with her loveliest ribbons and bury beneath the ground, beneath her eyes, ripping the feeling from the organ in her chest. Any attempt to talk to Jace would have been fruitless, she knew. Just look at her; short, a mop of red curls bouncing around her head, freckles splashing her nose and cheeks. Kaelie was basically perfect for Jace, if not for the attitude she threw around like a sack of potatoes, because she was all-that-and-a-bag-of-potato-chips.

 _Great._ She was thinking about him again.

She shook her head, as if physically trying to rid him from her mind, and bent over with a sigh. She pulled the bike up by the handlebars, and noticed the black square lying next to it. Her phone. She retrieved it with frail fingers and gulped down a lump at the base of her throat. A spiderweb of white cracks threaded across the screen, indentations visible on the edges. The iPhone had been a gift from her grandparents for her sixteenth birthday, seeing as how her mother never could have afforded one. She took a great deal of care for it - and now it was ruined, shattered to pieces along with the little pride she managed to stow in her emptying pockets.

She clicked the circle with her thumb, and was rewarded the light of its screen, the background of her and Simon laughing still there from the day she got it. Her orbs lingered a little too long on the picture, dancing across the two people occupying the stolen face of her phone. All she felt like now was chucking the stupid contraption again, chucking it until it tumbled and rolled right off the face of the planet, so useless for breaking so easily. But she had to remind herself; it was glass. It was a rectangle of fragility and she had forgotten how easily glass could be broken when under too much pressure.

She shoved it into the back pocket of her ripped jeans with an exasperated noise. Tilted her chin to the endless stretch of blue above her, the color the tips of her fingers wished could dip in and manipulate like water, clear and fluid and calming. Asked her heart if it could relax a margin. Wrapped a promise for her mind and stored it for later.

As it turned out, her body, more than anything, had received 3/4th's the blow from the car, her bike the lesser portion. Which was both relieving and fracturing. Her entire structure rippled with bruises and cuts and a nagging pain that refused to stop complaining. It poked her, everywhere, like that annoying sibling you honestly just wished you could slap in face but didn't because you knew it was wrong and you'd experience the actual wrath of Hell later that day. Like that, but with the most touching dash of agony.

Clary turned to make the exciting journey to school by foot, not trusting her body one single bit to actual move fluidly on the bicycle.

10 steps.

Exactly 10 steps she took to cross the early morning loneliness of the street before it pulled up next to her. She was about to scream, throw a rock, kick it - anything, really, because another encounter with a car was not on her list of to-do's within the next forever amount of time. But this vehicle pulled gently to the side of the street, professionally, becomingly.

She would have proceeded. Would have demanded her shaky legs to _move the hell forward_ but the shrill friction of glass window against rubber frame allowed the resonation of the spectacularly unexpected voice of Alec Lightwood.

"Hey-" He sounded unsure, confused. "Are you okay? Would you like a ride to school?"

So, of course, at this, she _crashed._ Right into the imaginary invisible wall slapping her in the face.

Alec _Lightwood?_ Asking if she needed _help?_ It was truly the day for events and miracles, wasn't it?

Clary startled so visibly she saw the jump in her body through the reflection of his car. Her eyes were wide, her pulse raking at her throat as she gazed past the low window of his car in attempt to see him. He had one elbow upholstering himself against the console, leaning over into the passenger seat, his smooth, beautiful features still washed in the golden glow of morning. His jet black hair was startlingly contrasted against his white skin.

"I - um - . . . What?" Clary stammered, actually, utterly dumbfounded.

Something flashed across his face. _Flick._ There, then gone in a microsecond. "What . . . What happened?" he asked, inspecting her features as if they were the most foreign congregation of lines and plains he'd ever seen in his life. "Are you okay?"

It was then Clary wondered what she may have physically looked like. She felt the sting of gashes and slits of pain across the valleys of her skin, the dips and hills in her face, but didn't stop to take a breath and materialize a mirror for her horrific image.

"I . . . Yes?" she replied, shrugging, so unsure of herself.

"Do you want me to . . . Help you?"

This conversation was a tangle of pauses and hesitations and uncertainties. Part of Clary wanted to laugh because of how dumb it all seemed. Another part kind of just wanted to sob until her eyeballs fell out of her head.

She gave in. "That would be great, actually," she sighed out, shifting her body weight.

Something like recognition flushed his features and then he disappeared, out of her sight, only to reappear again outside of his car. His body was tall and muscular enough to kindly grip the wandering eyes of silly little high school girls. Guaranteed, with the black dri-fit shirt that clung tightly to his contoured torso.

Clary dismissed this fact with an obvious clearing of her throat.

"Here, let me take that," he offered, already reaching for the bike she was pathetically standing up against her legs. As soon as the metal was no longer against her legs, they trembled slightly, tipping her world off its axis. She placed a dusty hand on her forehead, taking slow gulps of oxygen.

"Thank you."

Alec seemed to be busying himself with fitting her bike in the almost too-small trunk of his car. His arms rippled, like a rock in water, as the muscles within the skin strained and released. He grunted, pushing the wheel past the frame, grazing his knuckles on the spokes. He released a pained breath, shaking out his extremities in the lonely air beside him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Are _you_ okay?" he countered.

Clary smiled, a small, insignificant tug of her lips. "I've been better, I think."

"Did you fall off your bike?" he asked, capping the trunk with its black lid. He moved closer to her, stepping back up the curb, heightening himself as a lovely little reminder of how physically tiny Clary was. It probably wasn't normal for humans to be that small.

Clary stole a breath. Drank it down. Tried to laugh but the melodic noise came out all wrong, all miner. "I guess you could say that." She traced the landscape of her face with every curve of her hand, her palm, her thin fingers with short nails because art required messy hands that were too poor to afford the luxury of manicures.

"You 'guess'?"

She pulled her ligaments away. Felt the air drip cold on one palm. Her eyes were travelers, inspecting the scarlet stain on the pale of her skin. Her face was bleeding. "Oh," she said. Most likely the most idiotic thing that could have tumbled past her teeth and lips.

Alec's features were perfectly perplexed. "Right . . ." One dark eyebrow, cocked. He procured a cell phone from his khaki's, unlocking it and dialing it briskly, his fingers expert in the way they moved, bent, flew across the screen. Suddenly it was at his ear and he was speaking into it, to the unknown human on the other side of the connecting device. "Hey . . . I know, but are you at school? . . . I have bit of a . . . _situation._ " Clary heard the muffled, incoherent voice on the other end minimally. It was only the thread of a voice. A female voice, incredulous enough to rise higher in the midst of curiosity. "I'm bringing Clary Fray to school-" Her _name._ He knew her name. "And I need you to check her out. You're good with accidents and cuts, right?" The voice was higher now. Her ears struggled, fought to take the words and make something out of them, but to no avail. "Look, I'll let you see for yourself, all right?" His eyes were on her. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked her.

Clary's palms were too sweaty to pick up the words in her pockets. Her throat was a desert when she went to open it. "I - I'm fine-"

"Yeah, just be there," he spoke back into the phone, paying no heed to the sentence Clary was struggling to put together. "Thanks." Then his thumb ended the call and she was left without much struggle, only a very intense desire to know who was on the other line.

"Who was that? What did you just do?"

Alec exhaled. "That was my sister," he said. "She's going to get you cleaned up."

"What?" Clary's breath loved the idea of vacations today. "Why?"

"Because you look like you could use a little help, sunshine," he dead-panned. His voice wasn't rude, wasn't aggravated. Just a bit explanatory.

"Isn't your sister Isabelle?" Clary asked, remembering. Isabelled Lightwood. Spicy. Beautiful. Dark haired and mysterious, with a line of men waiting at her doorstep.

"Yes."

Nope. That wasn't intimidation creeping up Clary's backbone. Not at all.

"She doesn't have to do that."

The word "Indeed" came out as an exhalation as he moved to the driver's side of his car. "But she's going to."

Not a single pore in Clary's body breathed to move forward. Alec called from the comfortable upholstery behind the wheel.

"You going to get in? Because while I think your bike is cute and all, I really have no desire to steal it for myself."

"Sorry."

Now, she thought, would have been the perfect time to tell her legs to _move the hell forward,_ because attempting to crawl into the passenger seat of Alec Lightwoods car made her knees lock, but somehow, the whip at the base of her brain reminded her, Oh how rude it would be to leave his poor car running.

Stupid vehicles.

/

"Stop staring at me."

"I am _not_ staring at you."

"Your eyes betray you, Isabelle."

"I AM NOT staring at you!"

"It's okay," Jace sighed, running a red and sweaty palm through the dampened curls of his golden hair. "I know how hard it is to avert one's eyes. I am utterly irresistible." His lips, wet with saliva after running his tongue along both bottom and top, tugged to one side. "Especially now."

"You're disgusting," Isabelle scoffed, rolling her deeply darkened orbs. Her face glistened with sweat, the sheen washing all the way down, past her collar bones, licking up and down her chest, which was a little too exposed in the pitch black sports bra she sported.

Jace's eyes slit. There was another man, his eyes picked up, behind her, working exceedingly hard to bench press a weight he very obviously had no idea how to control. His eyes were scoping an area they had no business, no pass to be in. The trail of Isabelle's body. Her _curved_ body.

"You should put a shirt on," he said, no longer smirking. This, more than anything, was one reason he partly loathed going to the gym with Isabelle. She was basically his sister, and he cared for her as one, as a younger, very stubborn little sister. But nasty little perverts, exhibit A, like the one over yonder, lifting weights his muscles could barely uphold, enjoyed eye-raping beautiful girls like Isabelle. He would say _innocent,_ but that was a word he didn't believe anyone could affiliate themselves with anymore.

"Why?" Isabelle snapped, crossing her arms. "Can't help but look? God, you hormone induced animals are all the same-"

Jace stood from his sitting position on the bench press, the freezing, dripping water bottle still in hand. "No, princess. I am perfectly capable of resisting what little temptation you have to offer," he countered, still glaring, very ferociously, very blatantly, at the man on the machine.

Isabelle gave another roll of her eyes. Licked the side of her lips. "Then why does it matter, _genius-_ "

"Let me," he interrupted, now meeting her black eyes with a clap of thunder, "explain something to you. As you so galantly pointed out, us _hormone induced animals_ ARE all the same, and, unfortunately, some are very, repulsively, worse than others. And as much as I am aware you _love_ being fawned over-" She began to protest, but he shut her up, moving forward. "-there are some people, believe it or not, you really don't want to capture the attention of. So please," he smiled, as sarcastically and firmly as he could, "put a shirt on, before I go over there and smash that guy's teeth in with a weight bar."

Isabelle whipped around so suddenly the wind she produced actually washed over Jace, allowing him a modicum of cool. The moment she turned, the sruffly, peeking man inhaled so sharply, looked away so abruptly his arms gave out and the bar, which had already been previously trembling, fell atop him. His struggle to regain himself was evident.

Jace rolled his eyes, disgusted, thoroughly annoyed.

Isabelle seemed undeterred, though her features scrunched in distaste she put no effort into masking. "As if," she spat.

Jace stretched his arm over his head, feeling the physical pull and strain of his muscles work to release any leftover tension. His body was a tightrope, taught and inflexible with a million different bricks sitting upon the two shoulders he wondered still worked anymore. He gave his abdomen a sweep, arcing himself into a bridge too sturdy to break, to fall apart.

His phone suddenly vibrated, loud and trembling against the cracked and stained concrete of the gym floor. Despite the music beating against the speakers, his eyes could still track the igniting of the front screen.

 _One New Message._

"Bleh," Isabelle produced, rumpling her features as she drank it in. "That's Kaelie, isn't it?"

"There are so many females it could be," he breathed, not moving to check it.

"Honestly," she said, flipping her cascade of black hair behind her shoulder. "Why are you _dating_ her? She's _such_ a-"

"Now, now, Isabelle. Lets not resort to such unladylike ramble. I know how much it pains you to stoop to such a peasant level of English."

She released what could most likely pass for a bitter groan. "I'm telling you, Jace, she's awful. But you don't believe anything anyone tells you. You just keep on skipping along, ignoring every rumor you hear. Some of them, you know, are true," she said. Her eyes were knives and his clothes were caught on their bite, strapping him down.

"You should know by now not to believe everything you hear, Izzy. Teenagers can be so dramatic."

" _You're_ dramatic," she shot back.

"Labels, labels," he sighed, shaking his head. "If I even took the time out of my spectacularly precious day to listen to the stupid things people had to say, _you_ would have three hundred kids by now, Alec would be a drug addict, smoking some type of crack or cocaine or someshit every other morning, and Kaelie would have some very exotic diseases that have nothing to do with the winter chill," he explained, carefully maintaining an impassive tone of voice, a non-genuine quirk to his lips. "And we all know Alec is as harmful and educated as a kitten."

"Do not compare your _brother_ to a kitten, jackass. And she probably _does._ Hell, she's slept with half the school already-"

"It's crazy how little your mind comprehends when talking to a woman," Jace said, reaching for the towel that splayed across the floor in a haphazard heap in front of his phone.

"Why are you _such_ a _child-_ "

Her phone was a siren. Going off.

Loudly.

"Saved by the bell," he sang, setting the nipple of his water bottle against his drying lips, squeezing the ice-cold contents into a mouth that craved the taste of arctic liquid far too much.

She unstrapped her phone from the clutch at her wrist and studied the name playing at the screen. "It's Alec," she announced. "Probably wondering where we are."

"Tell him I miss his beautiful face."

Isabelle made a face, shaking her head as if she could shake off all of the unwanted comments her ears were forced to endure. She swiped the answer key and held it up to her ear. "Hello?"

Jace busied himself with stretching. Tried demanding the clearing of his brain. Felt his blood boil at its inability to listen.

"Not yet. Why? . . . Situation? What is that supposed to mean? . . . Um, sure? I mean, yes, but I don't understand. . ." Sigh. "Okay. I'm heading out. Bye."

By this point, Jace's curiosity had been piqued, along with his golden eyebrows. "What was that all about?" he asked.

Isabelle shook her head. "I have no idea. He said he had some type of 'situation' with Clary Fray. She's been hurt I think. He wanted to know if I could look at her or something. I don't know. He wouldn't tell me." Her complexion was fifty shades of confused. The film of perspiration taking its time letting the air claim it.

"Clary Fray?" Jace said, mildly incredulous. "The redhead?"

"No," Isabelle said, placing a dramatic hand on the handle of one hip. "The one with fucking blue hair."

"Well," Jace retorted, raising his eyebrows. "We definitely need to have a talk if Alec has started offering rides to girls with blue hair."

Each corner of Isabelle's lips decided to run opposite directions, proposing the most acidically sarcastic smile her features could offer. Her black eyes were slits underneath her naked eyelids, which made her look infinitely younger, as opposed to her usual glamour: gray eye shadow, long, full, black lashes serving as a canopy for depthless orbs. She replied, "You think you're so funny," with a halfhearted sneer.

"Correction," he said, snapping the towel he had previously acquired over one very toned, very sweaty shoulder. "I _know_ I'm so funny."

She reared back her good arm, flexed and curled her fist before sending it into his arm. The _slap_ of skin impacting skin bounced off the concrete walls.

Jace smiled. "That was cute." His grin was everlasting through his saunter back to the locker rooms.

"Just get the hell ready! And hurry up, _princess._ I know how long it takes you to perfect your hair and makeup," Isabelle called, letting the acid from her smile drip into her words.

"There's nothing to perfect, baby. I'm all natural."

His teeth poked through his lips after hearing her rewarding growl of annoyance, and her angered stomp as she stormed in the opposite direction.

Jace slipped the sleek edges of his phone through the lace of his fingers, his other hand curling around the bottom of the fabricated towel. His thumb seemed more curious than he was, as it clicked the circle at the bottom of the black screen, letting the burst of his background wave hello behind his early morning notifications. _Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. 2 New Followers on Instagram._ Like he needed more of those. _Messages: Kaelie, 2. Big Black (Sebastian), 1._ Another text from some Freshman girl named Emma Carstairs, who seemed to be friends with another freshman girl named Maureen Brown, who incidentally both seemed to be obsessed with him since the beginning of the year. How they got his number, he hadn't the slightest clue in hell. Such mysteries with little freshmen girls.

His trip to the locker room was brisk, and once inside the deserted cell of cold stone and glass mirrors, he allowed the towel to snake away from his shoulder as he carelessly tossed it against a metal bench. It caught quickly to the side, half hanging on for its inanimate life, half falling toward the pull of gravity. The air in the locker room breathed a wash of ice, allowing his scorching body to find comfort in the chilling temperature. His limbs moved mechanically, the creaky bolts within each joint tightening and loosening with every twitch. Before him stretched a dark gray sky of walls, shower heads protruding like stray branches on a tree. He discarded the cloth hanging loosely from the lower half of his body - his torso had been naked for a while, however, and it gleamed now with a film of sweat that he felt as the air wrapped around his muscles.

He welcomed the cold as it sputtered from the pipe, _1-2-3_ times before it rained in a steady, rushing pour out of the head. He twisted his body, physically feeling the water caress every inch and plain and hill of it, and it was refreshing; his body was downing the glass of water one might inhale after baking in a humid summer sun. The liquid caught in his hair, drenching the curls so they drooped and clung fast to his forehead, the hallow of his cheeks, the nape and sides of his neck. His hands were rakes and they threaded through his hair as he raised his elbows, pushing it all to the back. His face was drowning.

He wished, in that moment, that the shower could relieve his mind of stress as it did for his physical state.

He thought about so many things.

Jace stood there, eyes closed, trying to rearrange the scattered puzzle pieces in his head. He remembered his father's words, so full to bursting with an inhuman rage that would have caused anyone else to surely implode. He remembered standing, so still like the perpetual statue of robotic metal that he was, in front of Stephen, watching the older man's eyes _ignite._ Trying to keep up with his rapid bursting of hand flailing over the glazed look in his expression.

 _You ignorant piece of shit._

Jace turned.

 _You conceited child._

He couldn't understand why the air suddenly seemed so thin. Why he had to work so hard to steal it into his nose.

 _I can't believe you! Looking at your worthless face makes me SICK. Sick! I raised a man, not a CHILD. Not a BABY. And look what I get? LOOK WHAT I GET. An emotional, feeling, little CREATURE, who felt so fucking sorry. SO sorry. Did you have that sympathy in your eyes, boy?_

Jace's fist flexed, the digits straining, extending. His veins popped, like thin balloons, around his knuckles, the perfect road map of a blooming anger. He clenched it. White. White hot. White hot anger, as hueless as his knuckles as his fingers curled together, the epitome of a striking tool.

 _DID YOU?!_

His eyelids, two separate curtains drawn too tight, squeezing against the sockets.

 _SLAM!_

Before he knew it, his fist had become a wrecking ball, slamming into the immobile, sturdy surface of the concrete wall. His eyes decided to be the shocked audience, staring straight ahead as the memory of Stephan's fist arcing into Jace's jaw dissipated like smoke into the air. The pain was instant; hot hot hot _burning_ lace ripping through his hand, pounding, pounding, _beating_ against his knuckles as the fire exploded and consumed his arm, eating, devouring his ligaments until that's all he knew, that's all he knew, all he knew. Nothing else. Just the skin searing away from each individual bony knuckle. Just the scarlet tint painting his hand as the water carried it down his forearm, down the wall until it spun and spun and swirled into a mixture of water and blood and the drain drank it all up. Just took it in its open mouth and consumed his emotions.

He drew his arm back, re-flexing his fingers, inspecting the damage to the back of his hand. Four disfigured circles, red and sensitive and coloring his knuckles a puffy pink with its own unwelcome crayon. He would _not_ think about what happened last night. At least, that's what he demanded of himself. He very deeply did _not_ want to. It was just a petty little thing. A stupid incident. A human mistake. But he couldn't help but believe it. _Ignorant. Worthless. Child. Ignorant. Worthless. Child. Ignorant worthless child ignorantworthlesschildignorantworthlesschildignorantworthlesschild worthlessworthlessworthless-_

Maybe Stephan was right. No. Not _maybe._ He _was_ right. He was so perpetually correct. A perfect score on the judgement of his son. His son, that stole oxygen to breathe and letters to speak and space to live. That took up matter and claimed he needed to be alive, needed to be on the planet, but if asked, he didn't think he could give any possible reason to say he needed to be here. The world was overpopulated but the organ in his chest insisted on beating anyways. His mind was a wreck but it still continued producing thoughts anyways. His lungs were shriveling slowly and torturing him infinitely but they were still selfish enough to function anyways.

God. This was why. This was _why._ He hated being alone. His thoughts, when left to their own devices, were an army of threats and nasty words and degrading statements that, brick by agonizing brick, _destroyed_ him. He was destroying himself slowly, painfully. But he was not selfish enough, needy enough, helpless enough to ask for the company of someone. He would not. He would not be so helpless. Would not let that word - _pity_ \- become part of the vocabulary he affiliated with himself. He didn't need pity. Or want it.

Right now, the only thing he needed was to hurry his ass up, because Isabelle was most likely ready to march straight into the men's locker room, fearless, and grab him by the balls and drag him out herself.

He shook off his body. Shook off his hand. Shook off the words climbing up his brain.

By the time he retreated back to his phone, clothed in the clean attire he had waiting in a nearby locker, the message notifications had slightly grown. Four from Kaelie, still only one from Sebastian. He opened him and his girlfriend's conversation.

Four gray little bubbles, spaced away from his previous blue ones. Black letters specking the screen.

 _Morning._

 _How was last night at Alec's and Isabelle's?_

 _Something happened, my hood needs fixed. Can you go with me after school? So pissed._

 _When will you be here?_

There was a vibration as it trembled in his hand.

Five messages.

The last, infinitely more perplexing than the others. Jace's brows bent oddly against his forehead.

 _Stupid redheads._


End file.
